1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to call screening, and more particularly to call screening of an active voice mail message in a voice mail system.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the inception of the telephone answering device (TAD), the population has been provided with the ability to record a message from an incoming caller and subsequently return the call at the called party""s convenience. When using a TAD, the incoming message being recorded is generally also concurrently broadcast through a speaker on the device itself. If the called party is present in the area of the TAD when the incoming call is received, he or she can listen to the message being left in real time, and decide whether to take the callxe2x80x94commonly referred to as xe2x80x9cscreeningxe2x80x9d. If the called party wants to speak to the calling party at any point during screening, she may simply pick up the telephone receiver and thereby interrupt the message being left by the calling party. Generally, TADs will sense the drop in the DC line voltage of the telephone line resulting from the off-hook state of the telephone receiver, and discontinue the recording of the message. A TAD, however, cannot receive and record a message for the called party while the telephone line it is connected to is in use. Thus, a calling party will receive a busy signal and is required to wait for the line to be available.
An alternative to the TAD is the voice mail system. The voice mail system can be implemented in many ways, such as for example through a private branch exchange (PBX) or through a central switching office (e.g. telephone service provider). One advantage of the voice mail system over the standard TAD is that when the line being called is busy, the system enables the calling party to leave a message for the called party, who may then listen to the message and return the call. A shortcoming of the voice mail system is that the called party cannot listen to a voice mail message as it is being recorded (i.e. screen an active voice mail message). In this case, the called party is forced to wait until the calling party completes the recording of the message, then listen to the recorded message, and then return the telephone call.
A method for screening an active voice mail message, in accordance with a first embodiment of the present invention, comprises the steps of detecting the presence of an active incoming message from a calling party for a voice mail subscriber; determining whether the subscriber""s telephone set is currently in use or off-hook; sending the active voice message to the subscriber""s telephone set if the set is on-hook (i.e., not off hook); broadcasting the sent active voice message through a speaker in the subscriber""s telephone set as the message is received by voice mail system and which concurrently records the incoming message in the voice mail system; and enabling the subscriber to selectively interrupt the active voice message being broadcast and thereby communicate directly with the calling party.
When the active incoming voice mail message is received while the subscriber""s telephone is off-hook (i.e. the subscriber""s telephone set is in use), the message is recorded as usual by the voice mail system.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. It is to be understood, however, that the drawings are designed solely for purposes of illustration and not as a definition of the limits of the invention, for which reference should be made to the appended claims. It should be further understood that the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale and that, unless otherwise indicated, they are merely intended to conceptually illustrate the structures and procedures described herein.